2019 Novel Coronavirus (CoVID-19): Part XXVI
2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV (first named); COVID-2019 (later named disease); SARS-CoV-2 (final name of the virus causing COVID-2019), COVID-2019 Pandemic:

 

September 27, 2021 update Part 26
Paul Herscu ND, MPH
Herscu Laboratory 

 

Entering the third phase of this pandemic (Part 5 of 5)
A Recap

 

Hello and welcome. It has been a while since I have written. We have just now arrived at the third phase, of my understanding of the 5 phase stages of this pandemic. I imagine many of you are feeling frightened, angry and frustrated, as well as simply confused. Things have not gone as well as they should have, as we are experiencing the next increase of incidence in the USA. The question is how to proceed from where we are. I am bombarded by questions from family, friends, patients and students. I would like to discuss several major aspects to help the general discourse. This is a difficult task as at this time as there are two paths, one for those who have been vaccinated and one for those who have not been vaccinated. As a result, I would like to break down the writing into 5 separate posts. They are: 

1. A piece for those who have been vaccinated
2. A piece for those who have not been vaccinated
3. A piece on effective natural therapies
4. A piece on other pharmaceuticals
5. A short recap

 

Herein, I begin with the last piece, a short recap.

As I write this, I think about last night, when Amy and I and some friends were making homemade pizza, outside on the deck, when one of them said that she felt so sad that her friend’s brother, in his early 60’s, suddenly, unexpectedly, was in the ICU, on a machine, unconscious, fighting for his life with this infection. At the same time, I thought about all the anxiety that exists, still, and the weariness, confusion, anger, and pretty much any difficult emotion you can think of. So, perhaps to cheer you up, or rather to shed some light on what the future holds, I wanted to start with a statement that I have been telling my patients. And even though it sometimes raises eyebrows, please hear me out here. I would like to describe a sort of framework for your consideration, that I think will help explain the news as it unfolds over the next months. 

 

The pandemic will be over sometime between middle December to early May! I say this with some confidence, so let me explain why. As we recognized from the start, this germ is going to be with us for the foreseeable future. This concept has not changed. But how do we go from where we are now to a more normal life when the pandemic designation will come to an end. I would like to describe how this is going to occur and what to expect. During this time frame, at some point we as a species will decide that the pandemic is over. Yes, there will be different justifications, here or there, but basically we are going to call it over. This means the mandates, rules, restrictions, as a species, will stop. This has to do with the numbers vaccinated, and the numbers who survived the infection and developed natural immunity. The more vaccinated, the closer we are to the December date. If we stop vaccinations completely, the date gets pushed to May. But basically, enough people will have enough immunity to the bug, in whatever mutation arrived at, we are going to stop calling this a pandemic. 

 

2019 Novel Coronavirus (CoVID-19): Part XXV
2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV (first named); COVID-2019 (later named disease); SARS-CoV-2 (final name of the virus causing COVID-2019), COVID-2019 Pandemic:

 

September 10-20, 2021 update Part 25
Paul Herscu ND, MPH
Herscu Laboratory 

 

Entering the third phase of this pandemic (Part 4 of 5)
A piece on drug therapies

 

Hello and welcome. It has been a while since I have written. We have just now arrived at the third phase, of my understanding of the 5 phase stages of this pandemic. I imagine many of you are feeling frightened, angry and frustrated, as well as simply confused. Things have not gone as well as they should have, as we are experiencing the next increase of incidence in the USA. The question is how to proceed from where we are. I am bombarded by questions from family, friends, patients and students. I would like to discuss several major aspects to help the general discourse. This is a difficult task as at this time as there are two paths, one for those who have been vaccinated and one for those who have not been vaccinated. As a result, I would like to break down the writing into 5 separate posts. They are:

 

1. A piece for those who have been vaccinated
2. A piece for those who have not been vaccinated
3. A piece on effective natural therapies
4. A piece on other pharmaceuticals
5. A short recap

 

Herein, I begin with the fourth piece, a piece on pharmaceutical therapies:

As I start discussing this topic, I reflect that I am about to attend a funeral in a few hours, which will have many people in attendance. And tomorrow, a wedding with 8 people present. How completely opposite these two events are in my mind. As I think about it, if one is lucky they get to have a very long, productive, useful, joyous life. And by the time they pass, most of the people they know may have already passed. And so, the funerals are lightly attended. We know this, and expect this. But when a younger person passes, the funeral tends to be more heavily attended, as family, friends and colleagues are still around. 

 

And then there are the weddings. Where in the best of all worlds, it is the community that comes to celebrate that union. It does not really matter to me what the actual celebration is, but that there is  community, and it comes together to celebrate the future. Here, we expect many. So, you can see my reflection, of how completely opposite these events are, where people die all too young. And others celebrate great joys, but with only a few in attendance. It should not be this way. More on this period of time in the next post. For now, let’s begin.

 

2019 Novel Coronavirus (CoVID-19): Part XXIV
2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV (first named); COVID-2019 (later named disease); SARS-CoV-2 (final name of the virus causing COVID-2019), COVID-2019 Pandemic:

 

September 1, 2021 update Part 24
Paul Herscu ND, MPH
Herscu Laboratory 

 

Entering the third phase of this pandemic (Part 3 of 5)
A piece on effective natural therapies

 

Hello and welcome. It has been a while since I have written. We have just now arrived at the third phase, of my understanding of the 5 phase stages of this pandemic. I imagine many of you are feeling frightened, angry and frustrated, as well as simply confused. Things have not gone as well as they should have, as we are experiencing the next increase of incidence in the USA. The question is how to proceed from where we are. I am bombarded by questions from family, friends, patients and students. I would like to discuss several major aspects to help the general discourse. This is a difficult task as at this time as there are two paths, one for those who have been vaccinated and one for those who have not been vaccinated. As a result, I would like to break down the writing into 5 separate posts. They are:

 

1. A piece for those who have been vaccinated
2. A piece for those who have not been vaccinated
3. A piece on effective natural therapies
4. A piece on other pharmaceuticals
5. A short recap

 

Herein, I begin with the third piece, a piece on effective natural therapies:

 

Before I start discussing natural therapies, I would like to comment on an email I received. It was a kind, short, email, that said why am I equivocating on having people get the vaccine. I was a bit taken aback by this email, given the fact that I have been so clear about this, since even before vaccines were available. And also, from the hate mail, death threats, and insults I received (as well as the many, many, many, kind words and thoughts). I would say that I was pretty clear about getting the first shots last winter. I think the writer of that letter felt like I was not clear enough in the last post. She lost family members to this virus, and I think she believed I should perhaps not give any thoughts or word to those that were not vaccinated.

 

I feel deeply for her loss, and the losses in so many families, and it brings to light the difficulty in this epidemic where it is challenging to pay attention to all the different facets and easy to make errors in perception. My goal in the last post was less about people that are caught up in some political, or uneducated or misinformed moment, but rather to bring up important topics that may give people pause. And if we can actually have a reasonable conversation, I think we would all be better for it. I would like to give you one example of what I mean, to show some of the complexity.